Have y'all heard of these lovelies? Flat croissants, that's right, completely flattened croissants are all the rage right now! These flat croissants began in South Korea, then got picked up by some TikToker's and the rest is history. They are now everywhere, at least in HK.
Why flatten a croisssant, for gosh's sake, you may be asking. Indeed, at first, that is what I thought. Why the heck would anyone want to flatten the darn things after making so much effort to puff it out with layers upon layers. But after I finally tasted one of these flat croissants I changed my mind! The many, many layers of the original croissant, when flattened, create a crispy kinda of cookie now wrapped inside a caramelized exterior. And to top it off many of these flat croissants are further dipped in a flavored coatings, yum!
We decided to recreate these flat croissants in time for my little girl's annual school picnic. There was a bit of struggle at first but once we got the hang of it the going was pretty easy. Check out our guide on making flat croissants with all our tips and tricks to make the going smooth and easy as peasy. Result? Only totally yummilicious caramel coated crispy on the inside amazingly flat croissants dipped in luscious chocolate and sprinkled with your favorite sprinkles! Nom, nom...
Start with stale croissants. Or maybe I should say, start with soft croissants. When croissants are just baked they are crispy. Which makes them hard to flatten. After a day or so the crispness softens and then you can flatten the croissants quite neatly. However, if you buy your croissants pre-packed from your grocery store, they're probably soft already. Just squeeze to check.
To flatten your soft croissant use a rolling pin but don't roll. Instead, starting from the middle, use the rolling pin to press down. Gently at first and then more firmly. Don't worry if the croissant isn't that flat and kinda just bounces back despite pressing. The main idea here is to tell the croissant how you want it to lie when it is flattened with a weight later during caramelization.
Okay dookey, on to how to caramelize of the croissant exterior. At first we tried using butter and white sugar to caramelize. Ummm...totally did not work for us. I just ended up with white sugar crystals pressed neatly into the croissants that had to be removed from the heat to prevent burning. 😥
So then we tried another method that at first I didn't want to try cuz I was worried that it would make the croissant end up too sticky to hold comfortably. (It didn't.) This time we used butter and honey to make the caramel. The butter is added to a hot pan to melt. Honey is that added to the melted butter (see photo above left). The mixture is then cooked over a low heat until it turns into molten golden brown caramel (photo above right). Oooo, the caramel color is so pretty!
Into that molten goldness goes your partially flattened croissant. The down-facing side will caramelize first. But as it caramelizes we will need to add some 'weight' to the croissant to make it as flat as we can.
To this end we need to add a heavy weight onto the croissant to weigh it down. We used our cast iron pot which is pretty darn heavy and worked a treat. Be sure to add a sheet of parchment paper between the weight and the croissant!
After a couple of minutes it's time to lift off the weight and check for caramelization on the bottom side. If it has a golden brown caramel layer then the croissant is ready to be flipped. Also note how the croissants have flattened due to the weighing down.
Use a spatula to push the caramel towards the middle of the pan before flipping the croissant. Place the paper and the weight back on and wait for the second side to caramelize. After a couple of minutes, the weight is again removed and a quick flip exposes the most beautiful golden brown caramelization on the second side. Darnit, ain't that just pretty as a pie!
Repeat for all the croissants. If you have a bigger pan you can do more that one at a time, just make sure you have enough weights to use in flattening. Once caramelized and flattened place the croissants to cool on a piece of kitchen paper. As they cool the caramel will harden.
At this point you have your totally fabulous flat croissants ready for eating or sharing (these make fabulous gifts!). But if you want to go one more step to make 'em extra fabulous you can dip your flat croissants in chocolate! Whoopee do! I love me some chocolate!
Okay, now for a bit of techo babble about the chocolate dip. A requirement for a dip like this is that the chocolate needs to harden up after dipping. So it keeps it shape and doesn't melt all over your fingers. Chocolate needs to be tempered to achieve this. You can check out our post on how to temper chocolate, but note that tempering is kinda fussy.
Which is why we tried a new method for dipping chocolate this time: mixing chocolate with chocolate melting wafers. Chocolate wafers are also known as compound chocolate or chocolate melts. You can find these in the baking section of the grocery store. Melting chocolate wafers contain vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter which means they don't need tempering to stabilize but, alas, they don't taste as nice as real chocolate.
By mixing the two you get the best of both. The melting wafers stabilizes so that the chocolate hardens properly without the need to temper while the chocolate gives the dip the full blown gorgeous flavor of real chocolate. I must say we were most pleased with the results of this method of making dipping chocolate! A 'to die' for chocolate dip (that hardens) made easy!
Look at that velvety chocolate dip! Gorgeous, amirite?! Dip the flat croissants half way in. Use a spatula to push the chocolate up if your bowl (like mine) is too shallow. Smile a devious chocolately smile.
Once dipped place your croissants on parchment paper to cool down. The chocolate will harden as it cools. As a final touch you can add some sprinkles, nuts, or freeze dried fruit to jazz it up. We added some gold sprinkles that we thought looked pretty elegant.
Once the chocolate has hardened your dipped flat croissants are ready for the party! Caramelized on the outside, crispy on the inside with a luscious chocolatey finish to boot, these flat croissants are amazing: fun and yummilicious all at the same time! Be too cool for school, try it out and get addicted!
Flat Croissant Dipped in Chocolate
(makes 12) Prep time: 5 mins Cook time: 30 mins
Ingredients:
- 12 stale or "soft" croissants
- 1 1/2 sticks salted butter, 170g
- 3/4 cup honey, 250g
- 6 oz milk chocolate, 180g (or dark chocolate)
- 6 oz chocolate melting wafers, 180g
- 2 tbsp sprinkles, or chopped nuts, or crumbled freeze dried fruit
- parchment paper
- heavy weight like a cast iron pot
Directions:
Flatten croissants: Don't roll, use the rolling pin to press down from the middle out until the whole croissant has been pressed flat. Don't worry if the croissant bounces back a bit, that's normal.
Caramelize croissants: Heat up a non-stick pan over low heat. Divide butter into 12 equal pieces. Add 1 piece butter to pan and 1 tbsp honey. Let cook until honey butter caramelizes, turning amber colored. Place one croissant onto the honey butter. Place a piece of parchment paper to completely cover the croissant before adding a heavy weight on top. Let cook for 2-3 mins or until the bottom of the croissant has turned golden and caramelized.
Lift the croissant from pan. Use spatula to move the honey butter to the middle of the pan before flipping and setting the croissant back into the pan. Place parchment paper and weight on again. Let cook another 2-3 mins or until the second side is golden and caramelized.
Place on a parchment paper lined tray to cool. Repeat for all croissants.
Prepare dipping chocolate: Chop up the chocolate and the melting wafers to small pieces. Prepare a double boiler by placing a stainless steel bowl over a small pot filled with 1 inch of water. The bowl should not touch the water. Heat the water until just simmering. Add chopped chocolate and wafers to the bowl. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is all melted.
Dip the croissants: Turn the heat setting to the lowest. Take croissants and dip in halfway. Use a spatula to help the chocolate get to where you want it to go. Do both front and back. Lift and shake the croissant lightly to remove extra chocolate. Place onto parchment paper lined tray to cool. It will take a couple of hours to cool completely.
Eat immediately for best effect. Or store in an airtight container for 1-2 days. If you're keeping it for longer I would put it in the fridge. Enjoy, enjoy!!
Delectable Dainties at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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